Printemps en Paris

While staying in Brugge, we took a train to Ghent where our first stop was the fine arts museum - they have a lovely collection from the middle ages to contemporary works. From there we walked a LONG way to the ancient centre of the city which is really beautiful. The architecture is imposing, much bigger buildings than in Brugge (we are very pleased to have stayed in Brugge where we walked around the town every night). The medieval castle in Ghent was terrific and we followed that with visits to 3 important buildings - St Nicholas's church, The Belfry (watch tower complete with bells and carillion) then to St Bavo's Cathedral to see a Rubens and a couple of Van Eycks! Magnifiqe! By the time we returned to Brugge, had dinner outside at a restaurant and walked back to our hotel in the town centre, it was 20 to 10!
28th April To Paris
Our train had an upstairs carriage from Brugge to Brussels - good view. Then we said goodbye to Jan who went to Frankfurt to fly home and we took a top quality Thalys train to Paris arriving about lunch time. Bek had passed on very intricate key collection details - 2 door codes and a security box code.... and our apartment is certainly worth the hassle. 50 metres from the Champs Elysees and about 200 metres fron the Arc de Triomph! We have a dishwasher and clothes washer and windows with cast iron lace onto a deep, small central courtyard where several tall buildings meet. Received a text from Mum saying "Bon jour happy arrival" that,s lovely.
28th Our first full day in Paris was spent : walking down Avenue George v and across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower; standing in the shady queue to travel to the summit; taking photos from the top; travelling by Metro to Gare Austerlitz to plan all our rail trips and walking round many more fascinating streets.
I could not find an internet cafe so I have waited until this out of town trip.
Friday 30th - The Bayeux Tapestry.
We took a fast train direct to Bayeux and walked to the Tapestry exhibition first. Stunning! Then we had a delicious lunch in the sun (we have been blessed with the weather) - fish soup followed by a huge salad containg grilled duck and goose liver pate among other things. It stopped irene! ... I don't know how I did not have difficulty, but I was able to eat every morsel without struggling. Yum!!!!
I hope I will be able to contact you all again soon, it just depends on finding internet cafes.
Happy days,
Love
Susie

Brugge, city of a thousand photos / canals

In Amsterdam we really made up for lost time - canal cruise, Keukenhof (tulip gardens) Rijksmuseum and Van Gogh Museum were stunning. Public transport - trams and buses were good to our area and we took different routes so we saw quite a bit of Amsterdam coincidentally! On Saturday we took a bus to a fishing village on the Zuiderzee and a boat to Marken - a quaint touristy town that was on an island but is now connected by a causeway. The weather was equal to their summer weather - lucky us! Then our ticket allowed us to travel on to Edam and that was an absolute delight - canals, draw bridges, narrow cobbled streets, tradional old buildings, ducks, boats and domed bridges.
On the day we left Amsterdam, we took our cases to the bus and because it was Sunday morning, we all fitted. Our fast train to Antwerp was a luxury Thalys train stopping at Schiphol airport, Rotterdam and running in late to Antwerp. We had " mins to make our connection - Irene yelled run so I did and we all dived in to the lasr carriage, luckily finding seats easily - no wonder ... it was first class. The lovely conductor let us stay. MMMMMMM an upgrade!
Arriving at Brugge at 1.30 we walked until 10.15 with a couple of rest stops, so we saw about half of Brugge on the first day, including the canals illuminated.
This morning we took a boat tour of the canals and we found the Church of Our Lady where I saw my first Michelangelo 'live' - a marble Madonna & Child. Beautiful - the only piece that left Italy in his lifetime and one of the few to ever leave.
We have been eating good breakfasts and midday meals so we just have a light snack in the evenings usually followed by cards - Murder & Damnation (thanks Anna) or 500.
Tomorrow we go to Ghent for the day, then off to Paris after saying goodbye to Jan.
Cheers to all
Sue

Amsterdam at last

Here I have a keyboard I can cope with and I have good news and plenty of time and I have left my diary in my room!!! Typical. Not to worry. I will write up our Morocco adventures in the next post, suffice to say, we escaped from Morocco only 2 days late after being held up by the Icelandic volcanic cloud. What a disaster that has been for tourism and business everywhere, especially in Europe! We arrived at our second last stop in Morocco, Marrakech, where all the other members of the tour started and therefore ended their land part of their package. However, the cloud was already a problem so 41 people were stranded in Morocco with our wonderful tour director Graham (aka Aziz) stuck with them instead of returning to his home in Casablanca for a couple of days r & r before picking up the next group, which of course did not arrive.
So Irene, Jan and I returned in a huge coach, each with a front seat, accompanied by Karim the driver, his lovely English wife Anne and 3 year old daughter Habiba, who had come from Agadir to visit him for the weekend since he had been away for 2 and a half months! The coach assistant, Hassan was also with us, he was a great Moroccan gofer who kept the coach in pristine condition and attended the back door whenever we stopped to make sure everyone disembarked safely.
I had had food poisoning on the Wednesday after a recommended safe lunch at a hotel in the Toddra Gorge - I had to stop the bus 4 times ... awful, embarrassing and very depleting!!! They were all very caring. I missed out only on film studios at Ouarzazate - who cares and I was given top priority for seating for the last day or so on the bus. Friends plied me with appropriate drugs to keep the coach nice and I survived all the way back to the Prince de Pais Hotel in Casablanca.
Of all the cities in all the world... Casablanca is not really one you would wish to have to spend extra time in, but Aziz arranged for one of his good friends to take us out to dinner on our second night there - would you believe, a lovely young man, Rohan, from Glen Waverley. Aziz had also arranged for us to have the keys to his own apartment if we had to stay past Tuesday! As it happened, we were on the first flight out of Morocco to Casablanca and we were driven to the airport by the father of another friend of Aziz. As you can see, Aziz (Graham) was an absolute angel, no greater recommendation for Cosmos tours could we give; he really had no responsibility to us past Saturday morning, but we are still in touch.
We also made good friends with 2 beautiful people - Deryss from England and Flo from Ireland and we intend to keep in touch with them. We hope they will visit us at some time so we can proudly show them our part of Australia and maybe some others.
The plane was chock - a - block with passengers. Irene was not impressed with the farting footballers behind here seat, but I was on the opposite window and completely unaware of her discomfort. Arriving in Amsterdam jus before 9 pm on Tuesday night, our taxi driver informed us that Schipoll Airport closed at 9! My lucky silk travelling scarf and Irene's lucky boot worked well.
Today we explored a local market and trammed to the city. We walked and walked and clicked and clicked - those beautiful canals and the old warehouse buildings. We took a canal tour which included the port area - fascinating and we have booked a bus tour to the tulip gardens tomorrow.
I think someone is waiting, so I wish you all health and happiness as much as I truly enjoy.
I am here in Holland! Amazing!
It has been great to talk with Bek and Andy and text them, Mum and Judy too.
Love to all
Susie.

Keyboards and Camels in the Sahara

Blast - I JUST ZIPED OFF ALL MY TYPING AFTYER SPENDING 20 MINS OF MY 30 LOGGING ON. You can see that keys are in different places so I make errors - no time to fix. Our hotel is magnificent, looks like a posh kasbah with swimming pool and much atmosphere. Today we collected a local guide zho took us to a factory zhere they clean fossils and cut sheets of marble filled fossils into ostentacious furniture. Then to a huge market (souk) at Rissani. we were shown hoz to make mint tea and I bought a little carpet made by nomadic berbers - fun haggling in a big merchants place.
The food is marvellous and I am about to have my second swim in the beautiful pool. This arvo ze go to the desert in jeeps and I will have a camel to take me to a high dune for the sunset.
whoopee. o dear this keyboard
The people are lovely. Our guide today, Abdul Ali told us about the blue men of the sahara - he is one and zore his blue boo boo and blue turbin ( 7 metres material) The indigo is also rubbed into the face in the desert to save the skin from burning, hence their name blue men.















Sahara Spectacular
After our wonderful day in Rissani with Abdul Ali, who in his daily life is a teacher, we returned to the Hotel Kasbah Tizimi in Erfoud (it reminded me of the Cable Beach Resort in some ways) and prepared for our evening trip into the Sahara - cameras in plastic bags and head / face coverings. There were 9 vehicles waiting for us and I was lucky to be in with all my friends - Irene, Jan, Derrys and Flo. That meant lots of relaxed chat.
First the tour went to a local peak where we could look over the valley while Graham (Aziz) explained much of the history of the area in his inimitable way. Always a great performer, he interspersed his humorous presentation with incredibly informative detail, particularly including cultural and local knowledge.
Then, after following the highway for some time, we turned cross country and the landrovers spread out across the desert, what a sight it was to look across at the speeding vehicles. We stopped at a small village of mud houses (each with a solar panel on the roof - to charge the inevitable mobile phones?) Some children had run across to the cars as we approached and Aziz helped a couple to pile into his - we then proceeded to their home - a Berber tent in the middle of nowhere - this was a family of goatherds and obviously getting a ride with Aziz was not unexpected. He paid compliments to the mother, delivered the fresh vegies he had bought for them at the Risani souk that morning and explained to us their lifestyle; his generosity allowed us the privelege of looking around.

Back in the cars, some little time later we arrived at a smart looking kasbah in a flat area of the desert with dunes evident in the near distance. There was a cluster of brown berber tents, a 'park' of tethered camels and a group of men in blue and white. Here we were. After a demonstration of how to mount, we were led off in single file across the dunes which gradually increased in size. Our destination was a large dune an hour or so away, where we would sit and watch the sun go down over the Sahara. What a romantic notion. The camels were 'parked' in a sheltered drepression and with the help of our small but strong guides, we clambered up the unexpectedly steep dune to join more groups of people in our sandblasted wait for sundown.
The fun-loving young Berbers created toboggans for many by tugging them at speed back down the dune on camel blankets. Great fun! We were invited in to the kasbah to enjoy a glass of wine or softdrink and peanuts (thanks Aziz) and we were entertained by the young fellows who had taken us out into the desert. They came in as each finished tending his animals; we were all invited to join in their music and dancing.
Finally it was time for the return journey through the desert in the landrovers and I was given the front seat - I loved it, the headlights picked out the terrain as the vehicles once again spread out across a kilometre of land for the drive. Thrilling. Before reaching Erfoud, the cars made one more stop to allow us a magical view of the night sky. Aziz thinks of everything.

After Sahara - The Road of a Thousand Kasbahs from Erfoud to Ouzazate
This was a very long day on the road and Aziz later said it's where some people succumb to travel sickness. Noone in our group had that problem, but for me the day ended with equal symptoms caused by an unfortunate food experience. We were well informed by our intrepid tour leader about the use of tamarisk trees and basket fences and pens to slow the advance of the sand. The more fascinating information was about the underground irrigation system, vital to this country which is very fertile and can grow dates, henna, alfalfa for animals, okra, quinces, figs etc. However, in this area, new dams have stopped the refill of these systems and so they are dry, crops fail.The bus took us through ancient towns like Si Jilmassa, 8th century, now in ruins, was 14km long and an independent city state,was the centre for caravans on the Salt Road (trading spices for salt). For lunch we turned off the main road for 40km to Tinerhir in a gorge on the Toddra River. The obvious development of the town was fascinating in comparison to the crumbling ruins of the old ksar (walled town) and more simple houses that line the roads. Here grow olives, figs and almonds. The walls of the Toddra Gorge are 300 m high and we stopped to eat at the Hotel des Roches, which was one of many building cut into the side of the cliffs. Unfortunately, my meal appeared to be reheated and caused me extreme illness for the next 24 hours. after we had returned to the highway a couple of hours later. Unfortunately I had to stop the bus 3 times and I was pleased to crawl into bed in the hotel at Ouzazate (pronounced Wa-za-zat)where we were to stay only one night. This is an important centre for movie making, not of great interest to me so I did not regret missing the few activities there.

News from Fes

... and all this on an Arabic keyboard!
Despite the panic of one of our group losing first her passport and then her boarding pass, all went well at Tullamarine. Our flight from Melbourne to Dubai was affected by clear air turbulence, which meant little service because the stewards had to spend much time sitting, but we travelled well - except I was still unable to sleep despite taking a bomb. By the time we went to bed in Casablanca, I had been up for 48 hours. Our taxi had delivered us to the wrong hotel, so we hauled our luggage several rough and desperate blocks to The Prince de Paris Hotel in the centre of Cas. My word the gin and tonic in the bar before dinner was a life saver.
We walked several blocks to the Medina, the old walled city and its souk. A light lunch at the nearby Hyatt was rather nice and on returning to our hotel, we took advantage of an optional extra - a tour inside the huge mosque - a bus ride with our Cosmos group and tour guide, Graham aka Aziz.
That night I again could not sleep after 3.30 am - I had poetry going round in my mind and I had to get it onto paper ... I did.

On Saturday we drove to Rabat, capital of Morocco where a local guide took us to the palace (one of many), some amazing ruins at the Chellah gardens, the Kasbah of Oudayas (a great surprise of white and blue houses and shops inside the walled fortress of the army).
Photos, photos, photos.

The road to Meknes took us through a cork forestwhere we saw the remains of the recent floods and truffles being sold be the bag at the roadside (apparently not as special as the dard truffles of France, but nice grated on omelettes nonetheless we are told). Meknes is a world heritage site where we entered the medina, the kasbah with its ancient granary and water siphons and aqueduct and again the mosque - experiences that are amazing. I took a photo of the Kings golf course - usually hidden behind a huge wooden gate - top quality fairways and bunkers, 9 holes.

We arrived at Fes at 6.30 and enjoyed a buffet dinner before falling into bed exhausted.
Today we went through beautiful Fes to the medina with a fantastic local guide who, with Graham also being expert (he has lived in Cas 14 years) showed us through the labrynth of the souk and medina expaining, pointing out all the incredible things.
My time is up more later love to all Sue

Itinerary

The itinerary is very exciting - time to get out your atlas. In Morocco, the overnight stays are written in italics.
April 7th - Fly Emirates via Dubai to Casablanca.
Cosmos Tour "Jewels of Morocco"
April 8 - 18th. Casablanca, Rabat, Meknes, Fez, Ifrane, Erfoud, Rissani, Ouarzazate, Marrakesh, Casablanca.
April 18 - Royal Air Morocco to Amsterdam. Hotel Blue Square for 7 nights.
April 25 - Train to Brugge. Hotel Aragon 3 nights.
April 28 - Train to Paris. Bridgestreet Champs Elysees for 14 nights,
May 13 - Train to Les Eyzies de Tayac. B&B Ferme de Tayac (12th Centure monastery) 3 nights.
May 16 - Train to Avignon. Hotel Kyriad Avignon Palais des Papes 4 nights.
May 20 - Train to Nice. Hotel Berlioz 2 nights.
May 22 - Fly home Emirates, from Nice via Dubai. Arrive home just after midnight on 24th May morning.